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A sunrise watched after waking feels different to a sunrise that happens as a by-product of just... not sleeping.
Feels... softer.
Saeran sits on the living room floor, watching fingers of pink and orange rise from the earth towards the night sky. Both he and Saeyoung are still adjusting to their new home, but this one spot, here on the floor by the window.
This place, is his.
He likes that it faces away from the road. He can look outside without the nagging fear that his eyes are going to meet someone looking back in.
The air outside is still, and the birds are only just beginning to wake up. Right now, it feels like he's the only person alive in the world.
His breath fogs against the window, highlighting the marks where he's rested his forehead on the cool glass in the past. He shivers, and looks over at the couch. Oh. That's right.
He'd already dragged all the couch blankets with him when he stumbled off to sleep last night. It had been hard work, because Saeyoung had still been clinging to them at the time.
-oOo-
"We can't! Just! Stop! Watching it halfway through!!!" Saeyoung had protested, waving back in the general direction of the paused copy of Daft Note with one hand while gripping the blankets with the other.
"Then what am I doing?"
"Making a terrible mistake?" Saeyoung's voice is hopeful, even though it was already obvious he wasn’t going to win.
"Nice try, but no."
His brother had continued to cling to the blankets for the whole journey back to Saeran's room regardless, throwing feeble reasons as to why they should stay up at his brother's back.
“So... are you gonna sleep on my floor then?” Saeran asked, as he finally made it all the way inside his room.
“Maybe!” His twin flashed him a goofy smile, still clinging to the blankets.
“Pffft.”
But… Saeran felt a little pang of loneliness as he looked down at the dork below him, who had begun making a show of building a small, very unstable fort from the couch blankets.
We used to sleep in the same room, didn’t we…
As he leans against the edge of his bed, Saeran remembers the comfort it was, being held by his brother as he slept.
Those times…
Saeyoung shouts in dismay as part of his poorly erected blanket fort collapses.
...we can’t just go back, like nothing happened.
Standing, covered in a mass of blanket, his brother raises his arms and mock-growls: “I have risen!!”
Saeran stares at him, and smiles comfortably, knowing no one can see his face right now. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!!” And his twin tackles him with a blanket-muffled hug, knocking him back onto the bed. Saeran buries his face in the blankets, and doesn’t fight back. He still doesn’t have a lot of direct physical contact with Saeyoung - but the fact that he can’t see him right now makes it just that little bit easier to relax. Knowing his brother is on the other side, this close to him...
He doesn’t hate it.
They aren’t enemies, any more.
They aren’t friends, though, either.
The headaches have mostly stopped, and the anger has hollowed out. Things are definitely…. better. But he can’t really say Saeyoung feels the same way he did when they were kids. Maybe he never would.
Not that our lives as children were normal, either.
Their relationship… was still a nebulous thing.
Week after week, Saeyoung gently pushes forward, towards something… like family… but most of the time, he just lets Saeran breathe, and exist, and think.
At first, Saeran was grateful for the space, but lately, he keeps catching himself remembering the way they used to be. And every time, he’s flooded with an aching loneliness. The way he used to feel, before… ugh.
So much for not getting the headaches.
Does Saeyoung feel this way, too?
If he does, then why doesn’t he…?
Am I a disappointment, now that he finally has me back?
Now that he’s resolved things, am I just…
But then there’s moments like this.
It feels good. But.
“Hey… idiot, I can’t breathe.”
Saeyoung wriggles out from under the blankets, and Saeran pushes them off himself, so that they’re draped over his legs as he sits up again.
“Okay, okay.” Saeyoung sounds a little breathless himself. “I won’t keep you up. I just… tonight was fun, you know? I hope we can finish watching it later.”
Saeran nods. Watching shows together is something they’d never been able to do as children. It’s not the way things used to be, but. It’s not bad.
His brother gives him a tiny salute. “See you tomorrow, then.”
As he turns to leave, Saeran feels something wrench inside, as if he’s attached by a rope to Saeyoung, a rope that gets shorter and shorter every day.
He opens his mouth, but says nothing, and then, his brother is gone.
-oOo-
Saeran shivers again.
The blankets might not be around, but his brother’s hoodie is hanging loosely on the back of a chair, where it had been flung at some point the night before. It’d been too warm under the couch blankets for Saeyoung to wear.
Saeran pads over to the hoodie, the carpet eating every footstep soundlessly. It was his brother’s favourite item of clothing, so he was constantly wearing it around the house, and definitely not washing it regularly enough. He picks it up, considering. Why not? I can just use it like a blanket, anyway.
Back at the window, Saeran drapes it over his legs. The movement it causes in the air carries a nostalgic smell mixed in with the savoury twang of chips and energy drinks.
His brother definitely doesn’t smell the same, since becoming an adult. Something to do with hormones, probably. I’m sure I smell really different now, too. For a lot of reasons.
And yet, there’s something familiar there, something that reminds him about those times where he was afraid, or nervous, or in pain… and his brother had been there to hold him, to stroke his hair, to tell him it was okay.
He shivers again. His shoulders are still cold.
Saeran glances behind himself furtively.
It’s fine, right? It... doesn’t matter if he wears it, right? No one is gonna care. And, it’s really, really cold…
Slipping it over his arms, that nostalgic feeling increases again. Fingers numb from the cold, he has to fiddle with the zip fastening a couple times before he can get it to lock at the base, but after that, he’s able to do it up to his neck. Finally, he pulls the hood over his head. Gross. I can feel the grease. Definitely gonna need to wash my hair later…
It’s even more obvious, wearing this, that Saeyoung has a broader build. On him, the hoodie hangs like it was custom made for his proportions, but, despite being his twin, on Saeran the shoulders are too broad, the waist extra generous.
Which, on the plus side, has the effect of creating a pleasant, warm pocket of air between Saeran’s skin and the fabric.
It also means his brother’s smell is even stronger.
It’s not exactly... pleasant. But he hugs himself and breathes in, and feels the tension in his body ease, just a little.
The birds outside have fluffed up their feathers and sucked in lungfuls of air, and their morning songs bring life to the outside world. The stillness outside his window is broken by a magpie, carefully stepping through the leaf litter beneath the trees planted alongside the house. It pauses every couple steps to eyeball the ground carefully, occasionally pecking at whatever it is magpies like to peck at.
Saeran watches it, as the colour of the sky continues to brighten. Something about its methodical search in the morning light is calming. The world is slowly coming to life again, and this magpie is the warm-up act.
At some point, his focus on the magpie is broken by a small, soft sound behind him.
Saeyoung stands in the doorway, staring. He’s wearing loose pyjama pants, and a black singlet.
Saeran holds his gaze a moment, then glances away. “It was cold…”
“Haha…” Saeyoung’s laugh is almost inaudible. He clears his throat. “I’ll get you a blanket.” But he doesn’t move.
The magpie pecks at a tree stump with extra enthusiasm.
“Saeran…”
Saeran keeps his eyes on the scene outside. “Yeah?”
“It looks good on you, you know?”
“Hmm.” Why is he just standing there? Go, or… or come here… “It’s not really my style.”
“Still, though.” Saeyoung’s voice sounds a little raw. “It makes me happy…”
He leaves, finally, as Saeran continues to watch the magpie forage, the rope between himself and his brother pulling taught once again.
Saeyoung returns with the blankets from the bedroom, wearing them like a cape. But as he approaches his brother, he pauses, and Saeran can feel the apprehension radiating off of him without even turning his head. Saeyoung clearly wants to ask something more… say something more...
Saeran recognises it. And he breathes in deeply, again. There are so many things he wants to say, too. So many things he wants to ask for.
For so long, the silence was good enough.
But the rope pulls at him every time he turns away from his brother, now, and he can’t stand the idea that he’s the only one being bound. It isn’t just me, right?
All he says is, “Do you want to… watch the birds with me?”
His brother makes another small sound Saeran doesn’t recognise, but it tugs at those bonds around his heart once more. “Yeah… I’d love to.”
And then he’s surrounded by blankets, as Saeyoung closes the distance between them and drops to the ground. Then… just like we used to … he stretches out his legs to either side of his twin, wriggling up close and hugging him clumsily from behind. Saeran leans into him, as he feels his brother pressing his face into the back of his neck.
It will never be the way it used to be.
But maybe, it could be even better.